The Journal of North African Studies

ISSN: 1362-9387 (Print) 1743-9345 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fnas20

Ihbat: disillusionment and the Arab Spring in

Morocco

Taieb Belghazi & Abdelhay Moudden

To cite this article: Taieb Belghazi & Abdelhay Moudden (2015): Ihbat: disillusionment
and the Arab Spring in Morocco, The Journal of North African Studies, DOI:
10.1080/13629387.2015.1084097

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015.1084097

Published online: 15 Sep 2015.

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 The Journal of North African Studies, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015.1084097

Ihbat: disillusionment and the Arab Spring

in Morocco

Taieb Belghazia* and Abdelhay Mouddenb*

a
Cultural Studies Department, Mohammed V University and School for International Training, Rabat, Morocco;
b
Political Science Department, Mohammed V University, Rabat, Morocco
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This paper provides a reading of Morocco’s February 20th movement as an entry into the
understanding of political failure experienced by a social movement. While there is an
abundance of literature on successful movements, there seems to be little interest in
unsuccessful ones. This may be explained by the fact that, unlike publically celebrated political
victories, failure remains to a large extent contained within the private sphere. Accordingly,
access to the inner dynamics of social movement failure is problematic for the researcher
relying on conventional research methods and requires imaginative approaches. In this vein,
fiction seems to enable a better engagement with this important facet of collective action. This
paper proposes that the key in grasping the politics of failure is the discovery by activists that
their belief in the idea of the ‘people always united until victory’, which was a central
mobilising force celebrated and performed on the streets during the short-lived euphoric phase,
is flawed. Likewise, the consideration of the state as a paper tiger vulnerable in the face of an
undefeatable peoples’ will is equally erroneous. Disillusionment,translated in the Arabic ihbat,
captures the general mood of the post February 20th context. Far from the idealist expectations
of radical change, the unfolding of the events produced disappointing results, revealed the
disunity within the people, and unveiled the cunning side of state apparatuses and their ability
to survive setbacks. Rather than considering ihbat as a static condition, the paper highlights the
dynamics of alternative possibility generated by this emotion.

Keywords: ihbat; emotions; fiction; social movements; Morocco

After the euphoria that characterised the early days of the Arab Spring in its Moroccan version,
came disillusionment and demobilisation. This manifested in dwindling protests, diminishing
media coverage of unrest, and the decline of political fervor. At the root of this waning process
was King Mohammed VI’s 9 March 2011 speech, which promised a reformed constitution as a
response to the demands of the street. Inspired by the Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings, a group
of young Moroccan activists had used social media to urge Moroccans to take part in nationwide
protests on February 20th and to voice their desire for freedom, dignity, and social justice. Less
than three weeks later, the king’s speech,which sought to address the movement’s demands,

*Corresponding authors. Emails: Taieb.Belghazi@sit.edu; amoudden@mtds.com

© 2015 Taylor & Francis
 2 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

triggered a split within the movement:those who were satisfied with the outcome and those who
considered the promises too meager, and called for more radical change. The slogan of the latter
group came to call for a ‘parliamentary monarchy’, where the king reigns but does not rule.
This paper engages with the condition of disillusionment as it is represented in three fictional
works by Moroccan authors in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. The works were published
between the summer of 2012 and winter of 2013: al-Haraka by Abdelilah Belekziz, Don’t
Bury Too Fast Big Brother by Driss Ksikes, and Far From Noise, Close To Quiet by
Mohamed Berrada. The choice of these texts was prompted by the fact that they constitute the
main fictional publications to date that bear on the February 20th movement either explicitly
as in al-Haraka, or metaphorically as in Don’t Bury Too Fast Big Brother. In the case of Far
From Noise, disillusionment with February 20this presented as the last instance in a long chain
of political failures throughout Morocco’s modern history. Fiction gives an alternative lens to
texts written by social scientists on the events of February 20th, which focused on institutional
and legal aspects, but avoided the inner workings of political failure, the emotions generated
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by the movement’s unfulfilled hopes, and its impact on the activists’ approach to politics.
By the time these texts were published, Summer 2011, Summer 2013, and Winter 2013,
respectively, the élan of the movement had subsided significantly and lost the radical momentum
that characterised its initial outburst on 20 February 2011, the date of the first mass demonstration.
The protest on 20 February was followed by weekly marches on the streets of the capital as well as
many other cities and towns across the country. Protesters chanted slogans, displayed banners,
and called for radical political reforms. Although the slogan irhal (‘get out’ in formal Arabic)
became the motto of the Spring throughout the Arab world, expressing disgust and rejection of
heads of states, in Morocco, it was never addressed to the king in person. Instead, his closest
friends and advisors were told to irhal. This in itself was a radical move in the Moroccan
context. Protests were widely covered by national and international media and were the topic
of heated discussions on social media. The feeling was that the country was on the verge of a
radical transformation, unprecedented in Morocco since its independence in 1956. Speaking at
the outset of the Arab Spring, the Moroccan poet Abdelatif Laabi described the magnitude of
the event as ‘ … tectonic plates which have moved, provoking an earthquake involving human
beings and not continents. The plates that we thought were stable and permanently riveted to ser-
vitude and fatalism’. Referring to Morocco specifically, he added: ‘Everywhere, change in depth
is the order of the day rather than a mere approach that aims at papering over the cracks. And
Morocco could not escape the rule’ (Laabi 2013, 67, 70).
Although Morocco witnessed two attempted military coups in 1971 and 1972, as well as
several riots and mass protests particularly in 1965, 1981, 1984, and 1999, 20 February 2011
seemed more threatening, since it harnessed the revolutionary potential that was sweeping the
region. The movement was more spontaneous than earlier attempts; uncontrolled by well-
established opposition parties, making its containment by the state more problematic. The
youth who initiated the movement used an organisational formula based on Attansikayat, (coordi-
nation committees), and these did not operate according to the traditional practices of political
compromise or bargaining, which have in the past allowed for the co-optation of the opposition
by the state. There was no established leadership to take part in government-sponsored initiatives
that aimed to tame the movement, and it was set on continuing its radical line. Unlike previous
movements of contestation, the Moroccan Spring was characterised by its peaceful nature. The
demonstrators continuously emphasised their rejection of violent means, and the state demon-
strated much more restraint than usual in managing the crowds. In the past – particularly
during the period of mass repression lasting through the eighties known as the ‘years of
 The Journal of North African Studies 3

lead’ – street protests left hundreds of victims. Social media served to amplify the movement and
abetted the optimism of the demonstrators. It provided detailed documentation of street protest in
every corner of the country and highlighted the overwhelming feeling that change was imminent.
This euphoria was characteristic of the first few weeks of the movement. Signs of a dwindling
euphoric mood began, however, in the aftermath of the king’s speech, where he announced the
creation of a commission to redraft the constitution following a series of consultations with
political parties and civil society organisations.
The king’s speech forced a split within the movement, with some urging trust in the consul-
tation process and taking part in it in good faith, while others considered it yet another ploy
deployed by the Makhzen (traditional state) to maintain its hegemony and bring about a symbolic
closure to the revolutionary demands of the youth. The post-euphoric phase of the movement
revealed ideological contradictions between its various components; namely, the non-partisan
youth, the traditional opposition, the radical left, the moderate Islamists, and the radical funda-
mentalists. This succession of splits led to declining numbers at organised demonstrations. Gradu-
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ally, it became obvious that the movement had lost its ability to mobilise crowds and attract media
attention. Referring to what was considered the leading group of the movement, Rabat
Tansiquiya, Joseph Hivert described, ‘[i]t moved from one assembly each week in 2011 to one
assembly in every two to three months in 2013; from 100 to 130 participants attending the assem-
blies in 2011 to only 5 to7 participants in 2013’ (Hivert 2013, 2).
At the same time, the consultation process initiated by the king proceeded with confidence. A
draft of the constitution was issued on 17 June 2011, and was followed by a referendum on 1 July
2011, then parliamentary elections on 25 November of the same year. These elections resulted in
the formation of a coalition cabinet, headed for the first time in the history of Morocco by an Isla-
mist party, the Party of Justice and Development, which took office on 3 January 2012. In
response, there were calls from the February 20th movement for mass demonstrations and a
boycott. However, popular approval of the constitution and the efficient organisation of parlia-
mentary elections dealt a heavy blow to the movement.
Crippled by inexperience as well as internal conflicts between Islamists, leftists, and other fac-
tions, February 20th failed to produce charismatic leaders, effective organisational structures, or
unifying agendas beyond sloganeering. With no asset other than fluctuating mass enthusiasm, the
protest movement lost momentum and petered out as the regime was manoeuvred effectively to
counter it.
The king’s reforms were hailed by the leading political parties and applauded by Western
powers as a political success demonstrating Morocco’s exceptional status within an authoritarian
region. The consultations, and new constitution was said to represent a peaceful alternative to the
chaos that was spreading in the Arab world.
Critics, however, have pointed out the limitations of these steps and identified them as part of a
deceptive agenda by the monarch. Najib Chaouki, a key figure in February 20th movement
lamented, ‘We were in an absolute monarchy, now we are in a legalized absolute monarchy …
We want a king who reigns but does not rule. However, all the main powers remain in his
hands’ (Colin 2011, 83). Hassan Barari recognised the ability of the regimes in Morocco and
Jordan ‘to take much steam out of the protest movement’, and did so only ‘through pseudo-
concessions’ (Barari 2015, 13). Reda Benchemsi read the king’s initiatives as nothing but a ‘con-
stitutional smokescreen’ deployed to ‘outfox its opponents’ (Benchemsi 2012).
An analysis of these events has concluded that in the early euphoric period of the Arab
Spring demands of the people were that government go beyond the dominant paradigms of
Arab politics, Morocco included. These demands, the dominant framework holds, were toned
 4 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

down considerably in the later periods, in particular following the realisation of authoritarianism’s
durability (Valbjørn 2012). What this line of thinking misses, however, is how society comes to
terms with its failure to change a regime. The analysis of social movements tends to look at demo-
bilisation, which remains limited to institutional dynamics. Critics of the movement have pin-
pointed the absence of a centralised structure and effective leadership as the reason for the
movement’s failure, citing these as mechanisms that are able to produce change.This just tends
to reemphasise state’s know-how in the management and containment of protests, and does not
do justice to the multiple dimensions of the failure of the February 20th movement, in particular
its emotional toll.
Social movement scholarship has paid scant attention to the emotions of failure (Goodwin,
Jasper, and Polletta, 2001). Understanding of what past political failures in Morocco have
meant to the people remains limited to conclusions about inadequate strategies and theories,
lack of political skills, and structural constraints (Waterbury 1970; Hammoudi 1997; Laroui
2005). In general, however, little is known about how the actors in failed political movements
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grappled with their predicament. After decades of rejection, however, social movements scholars
are ‘bringing emotions back’ as a legitimate subject of study. In the words of three leading the-
orists on the topic: ‘Like other aspects of culture, emotions can be seen as an aspect of all social
action and social relations. They accompany rational acts as fully as irrational ones, positive
experiences as much as negative one’ (Flam and King 2005).This paper recognises failure as a
multi-layered emotion that is not expressed solely in explicit observable political action or voca-
bulary. It can be played out in intimate feelings that, unlike the festive celebrations of political
victories, escape and defy public scrutiny. Fiction writers are best equipped to penetrate the inti-
macies of the private realms inaccessible to social scientists, and can thereby help to fill in the
gaps left by the social movement literature.
Fictional works thus form the basic material on which to reflect upon highly charged political
events. This approach seeks to understand the concrete politics of ihbat through texts. As
R. Radhakrishnan argues:
Being like the real but not being of the real itself, fiction had opened up the space of reflexive spec-
ularity without whose help reality can never make any truth claims about itself. If reality is what
mimesis does, then reality is constrained to be verisimilar with reference to itself before it can
attain any kind of ontological consistency, let alone epistemological credibility. In other words, for
truth to be itself, it has to be like itself.
Radhakrishnan is not alone in stressing the role of fiction as paramount in understanding politics.
Jean-Luc Nancy and Lacou-Labarthe also point out that ‘fiction, with its ability both to vivify and
suspend the temporality of the lived moment’ turns into ‘a charged site for the mise en scène of the
political’. Fiction is the site where politics is suspended and the political is initiated simul-
taneously (Radhakrishnan 2012, 659–662). Fiction does politics the way literature, in general,
as Jacques Rancière reminds us, does politics – mainly as fiction. For Rancière, literature is pol-
itical not because it reproduces discursive representations of reality; it is political because it can be
a strong agent for ‘self- interpretation’ and ‘self-poeticization of life’ (Rancière 2011). Fictional
texts effect in some ways a displacement of the authoritative voices of social science and posit
themselves as sincere renderings of the perspective of their authors/narrators. Furthermore, as
Levy points out:
Fiction enables researchers to access and express aspects of the human condition that may otherwise
be out of reach, making social research accessible to the public. Fiction as method has become an
important part of the social science enterprise including the publication of short stories, novellas,
 The Journal of North African Studies 5

novels, plays (ethnodramas), poems, parables, and more. This growing body of scholarship points to
(1) the frailty of the fact/fiction (nonfiction/fiction) dualism on which traditional social science rests
and (2) the utility of fiction for serving research agendas. (2012)

Until now, political failure of the February 20th movement has been captured in the social science
literature by concepts such as ‘the persistence of autocracy’ (Barari 2015) and ‘the post-democra-
tization paradigm’ characterised by ‘its focus on the continuities in the apparent changes and
interest in understanding the dynamic, but also durable nature, of Arab authoritarianism’
(Valbjørn 2012). At the societal level, the Arabic terms fashal, yaas, and ihbat have been used
to describe what happened. Fashal (failure) indicates the failure to fulfil pre-conceived political
agendas and remains strongly associated with the cognitive dimension. Yaas (despair) refers to a
lasting stagnant condition void of dynamism and full of dreary prospects. As for ihbat, the
concept adopted by this paper, it designates a setback for the disillusioned, but it is generative
at some point in time, of a dynamism promising potential possibilities for rebirth and renewal.
Ihbat, translates a feeling of ‘being weighed down’, a sentiment of disillusionment that breeds
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political fatigue and resignation. According to Winegar, ‘A central source of ihbat is dashed
hope, a kind of loss of revolutionary innocence’ (2013).
Ihbat can be associated with a number of concepts. One is disillusionment, defined as ‘a feeling
of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to
be’. It is also, ‘akin to depression, accompanied by philosophical angst from this feeling.’1
However, and unlike euphoria, ihbat, in its stronger and more genuine form, is a sentiment
dealt with in the intimate loneliness of the disillusioned. It is thus less the result of politically
motivated efforts, than it is a spontaneous private attitude. This sentiment is best expressed
through fiction, which explains the choice of this paper to read ihbat from the texts of Belekziz
(2012a), Berrada (2014), and Ksikes (2013). The authors present interesting positions, which
might be useful to set out before plunging into analysis. Belekziz,for his part, was born in the
1950s in Marrakech. He is a philosopher who moved from Marxism in his student’s years, to
the radical left (Ila lamam) and was a supporter of the pan-Arab movement. He was the secretary
general of the Moroccan Arab forum in Rabat, and is known for his numerous publications related
to Arab thought, politics, and the Palestinian question. The novel under consideration here, al-
Haraka,is his second. Ksikes was born in Casablanca in 1968. He is known as an independent
journalist with sympathies to the left. He is a vocal secularist, a public intellectual, and Franco-
phone playwright. He is one of the founders of the Daba theatre company, which was influential
among the February 20th activists.2 Don’t Bury Big Brother is the third play Ksikes published, and
was performed in Morocco as well as in France. Berrada, finally, was born in 1938 in Rabat. He is
known as a leading literary critic in Arabic and was once a major figure in the Moroccan socialist
party. He was the president of the Moroccan writers’ union when it played a major role in the
country’s cultural and political scene. Far From Noise is the latest of his six novels, all known
for their experimentation and subversive style.
The authors’ texts are rich in situations where ihbat is explored. Hassan, the protagonist of in
al-Haraka, experiences the emotion when his romantic expectations of activism are shattered by
the disappointing banality of politicking. Berrada’s characters represent different generations of
modern Moroccoans , who are all equally disillusioned. The same can be said of the inhabitants
of Building 48 in Ksikes’ play, when they endure a tragedy amid an otherwise utopian experience.
Belekziz’s Hassan, introduced as an enthusiastic youth with no previous political commitment or
affiliation, embraces wholeheartedly the call to join the movement in Rabat shortly after the erup-
tion of the Tunisian revolution. The novel follows Hassan’s engagement with the movement
 6 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

(though it is never referred to as February 20th movement, it is certainly a fictional version).The

evolution of the fictional movement and its protagonists echoes the trials and tribulations of the
non-fictional movement in minute detail. When asked in an interview about his choice of fiction
to narration of the events of February 20th, Belekziz explained that it allowed him to escape the
rigorous constraints of theorisation.3 While fiction enabled him to deploy symbolic density, it was
constructed on detailed knowledge of, and proximity to, empirical reality. Several leading figures
of the non-fictional movement were Belekziz’s former students, with whom he had close relation-
ships. This offered him firsthand insight into the inner workings of the movement.4 In addition,
throughout these historical landmarks Belekziz published numerous articles in the Arab press pre-
senting his theoretical analysis of the Arab Spring in general, and of the Moroccan February
20thexperience in particular (Belekziz 2012b). For him, fiction was another interpretation of
the historical event. Rather than being unreal, al-Haraka gives an account of a different facet
of reality.
As al-Haraka’s narrative evolves, its protagonist Hassan’s romantic enthusiasm is confronted
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with the harshness of political manipulations and egoistic calculations of other movement’s
members, who have gradually contributed to the petering out of his high hopes for a bright
future. The communal and symbiotic relations of the movement’s members in its beginnings
are encapsulated in the ideal of the homogeneous group that articulates its desire in a harmonious
voice. This is eventually undermined by dissonance, which comes to dominate the meetings.
Disagreements within the group over attitudes towards political allies and enemies,as well as
answers to the state’s initiatives for reforms, reveal the impossibility of maintaining the coherence
of the activists. This account of the fictional movement echoes what was amply covered in the
press concerning February 20th. What sets off al-Haraka is its insightful engagement with
ihbat, from its birth to the moment it becomes the pervasive mood among the work’s protagonists.
The story penetrates the inner thought of Hassan, revealing the dynamics through which his
romantic visions fail to offer a sustainable alternative to the manipulative mode of politics.
Tension arises when an irreconcilable rift appears between two opposing camps:the romantic
yet realistic Hassan and his friends, versus the radical and stubborn dogmatic activists led by
an impudent and disrespectful Oualid.
Confrontations openly intensify between Hassan’s group, which is willing to accept and engage
with the constitutional reforms proposed by the king, citing the action as one of realism. and
Oualid’s camp, on the other hand, which rejects these reforms as window dressing and a mere
reproduction of authoritarianism. While the rifts within February 20th movement were public
knowledge and widely documented in the media, fiction allowed Belekziz to free himself from
the evenhandedness expected of a social theorist and amplified the evil character of the dogma-
tism among the fictional characters. These rifts prepare the reader for an appreciation of the
process that leads to Hassan’s ihbat. Oualid’s positions regarding what political line to adopt
are unconvincing in Hassan’s view, since they consist mainly of sloganeering and unrealistic
responses to concrete situations. Yet, Oualid’s camp succeeds in imposing its agenda on the move-
ment. Hassan perceives this imposition as an unfair highjacking of the genuine spirit of the move-
ment and a corruption of its romantic ideals. This was the context of Hassan’sihbat, which was
meant to mirror the ihbat that prevailed among the activists of February 20th and that ushered
its disintegration.
Whereas al-Haraka speaks about ihbat in relation to February 20th, the main characters in Ber-
rada’s novel – who stand for different generations of Morocco’s modern history – have all experi-
enced profound political disillusionment. One character, Taoufik Assadiki, had studied and
practised law since the colonial period and lived through the decolonisation process. Although
 The Journal of North African Studies 7

he is successful professionally, his brother, an activist in the opposition and exile in France, drives
home to him in a conversation that takes place in Paris, the sentiment of the gap between the ener-
getic willingness to change the world, and the realisation of the smallness of the individual in the
face of the obstinate reality controlled by political machinery. Reflecting on his life experience,
Assadiki confesses:
I have been feeling for sometime that the enthusiasm of the youth has waned and lost its vigor. I say to
myself, no one can gain awareness even through imagination of the gap between two states in a
person’s life, a state of excitement and belief in the possibility of changing the world and a state of
weakness in the face of a conquering machine that one cannot confront and that plays with us for
a while before pushing us aside. (Berrada, 73)

Falah Alhamzaoui is also a lawyer, working initially as an assistant to Assadiki before they
became partners. Alhamzaoui, born in 1956 the year of Morocco’s independence, was active
in the socialist opposition to the monarchy, but realises later the futility of politics in bringing
about the desired change to a regime that proves resilient and enduring. He also realises the
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lack of credibility of left-wing opposition activists and their inability to compete with the
menacing rise of the Islamist movement. Like Assadiki, his predecessor, he grapples with the
persistent question: ‘what is it that turns the enthusiasm of belief and of sacrifice for the better
into ashes that cover the self with a web of doubt and bitterness and pushes us to accept
reality as it is’ (Berrada, 131).
A third character, Nabiha Samaan, also born in 1956, studied at the University in Rabat before
moving to France to complete a degree in psychoanalysis. When she comes back to Morocco, she
opens a clinic where a ‘talking cure’ constitutes the main treatment she offers her patients. She too
wants to grasp in her own words: ‘the reality of my society that is lost in the meanderings of poli-
tics and the cunning of the Makhzen which excels in the techniques of obfuscation and delusion’
(Berrada, 182). To this end, she establishes a salon that holds regular receptions for intellectuals,
architects, and lawyers; including Assadiki, Alhamzaoui as well Arraji, the novel’s narrator. Dis-
cussions in the salon, centered on personal stories, are uncensored by societal etiquette and free
from both the shallowness and deceptiveness of political discourse. The salon becomes a space for
truthfulness, transparency, spontaneity, and frankness, as a cure for the dominant malaise. The
choice of fiction as entry to the understanding of political history in this novel is justified by
the narrator’s words: ‘Fiction frees me from the burden of the objectivity of history … ’
(Berrada, 11) and is ‘more appropriate to the relativity of historical truth’ (Berrada, 18).
For Ksikes, Don’t Bury Big Brother Too Fast takes place in the context of the Arab Spring. The
narrator, a geek, attempts to gather the former residents of Building number 48, which had been
burnt down 20 years earlier. The scene is staged while images of crowds chanting the familiar
slogans of the Arab Spring are beamed on a screen. The play centres on debates between the
former residents over what to do about the legacy of their building, which had once been a
hub of avant-garde libertarian debates and intellectuals. Religious tolerance, sexual permissive-
ness, linguistic pluralism, and transgressive thinking were paramount when the residents had
turned the building into a microcosm of an ideal free society. A mysterious fire puts a sudden
end to the utopia, leaving several inhabitants dead, and forcing the survivors to relocate. On
the site of this ‘lost Babel’ as Absaloum, the author’s alter ego puts it, two options were available,
which would go some way to remedy the sufferings occasioned by the ‘loss of the good life’. One
option, championed by Kaltoum, seeks to turn Building 48 into a museum. The other, voiced by
Absaloum, rejects the museufication of the experience and insists that the legacy should be main-
tained instead as a horizon for a future to come. As he puts it: ‘We are not here to admire the
 8 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

wreckage of our grandmothers but to unearth this common dream that was reduced to ashes’
(Ksikes, 38).
In their reflections on the various aspects of the tragedy, the protagonists struggle to piece
together a fragmented collective memory. In their debates, the fire is seen as, alternatively, an
unintended incident, an operation carried out by Islamists who disapproved the building’s liber-
tarianism, a crime orchestrated by a hostile policeman. The play does not settle on a definite
answer, but highlights instead the centrality of self-reflection in the process of coming to terms
with the tragedy. Rather than being simply a shattering of the collective dream, the fire brings
into relief individual loss and the individual struggle to reconstitute oneself in a post-traumatic
context. This is confirmed by the narrator in the closing statement of the play: ‘You should
know that it is by accepting to lay bare your stories that you have helped me to reinvent my
own’ (Ksikes, 88).
Initially, the Arab Spring was full of promise for change and was energised by a conviction that
change was to be fulfilled imminently. The belief that a united people could gain control of their
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destiny and radically transform the existing order exacerbated mass enthusiasm. Poet Abu
Al-Qassim A-Shabbi (1909–34) perhaps best captured the prevailing sentiment in a slogan that
was embraced as the motto of marches during the Arab Spring throughout the region,
Morocco included:
If, one day, the people wills to live Then fate must obey Darkness must dissipate And must the chain
give way.5
A major source of disillusionment as the protests continued was the realisation that the people’s
unity was more difficult to achieve than expected, and its will provided no guarantee of victory
over the political machinery controlled by the elite. Ihbat, born out of this disillusionment, as cap-
tured in the texts under study, provides a valuable insight into the constitutive elements of political
culture in Morocco. The key in this disillusionment is the discovery of the discrepancy between the
people as a romanticised idea in the revolutionary euphoric discourses and the people as they were
encountered in the terrain of politics. In the latter, people are selfish individuals divided when com-
pelled to make concrete political choices and motivated by their search for self-gratification.The
shift from euphoria to ihbat took place because of the changing fortunes of political action. The
inability to see expectations materialised leads to the realisation that expectations were but illusions,
and that reality set the ground for demobilisation. Demobilisation as a result of ihbat reveals a differ-
ent process from those mentioned on the map of political emotions outlined by Flam. Flam informs
us of a clash between the cementing emotions of gratitude and loyalty for the existing order, and the
subversive counter-emotions of hate, distrust, and contempt held by social movements towards
rulers. These emotions serve as mobilising forces that produce political action in the confrontation
between rulers and opposition. What Flam’s map does not cover, is the eventuality whereby
emotions of distrust and contempt are directed not against the rulers but towards societal forces.
As the works here suggest, the outcome is disillusionment and demobilisation.
Assadiki’s brother Ali in Far From Noise is a case in point. He confesses that:
I was surprised by the despicable face that revolutionaries reveal after they falter and are forced by
exile to relive the brutality and reality of the everyday. We change into people who live on dreams
and on the invention of mythical aspirations. Then, bitterness sets in, and relations protected by
noble principles, soon lose their aura and take on their true value … Thus nobility coexists with base-
ness and sacrifice goes hand in hand with egoism. (Berrada, 69)

In Belekziz’s novel, dogmatists within the movement are perceived as mummies from ancient
times residing in a period with which they have no connection. They were defeated politically
 The Journal of North African Studies 9

a long time ago, and were dropped by history, but persist ‘in maintaining their tutelage on the
young activists of the new movement’ (Belekziz 2012a, 196–197). In both, ihbat represents
the gap between expectations and tangible realisations, as well as the confusion experienced
when reality no longer resonates with belief. Unlike periods of stability, revolutionary contexts
represent moments of promise, when the future seems open ended. Euphoria is heightened
when political utopias become temporary realities through revolutionary repertoires and perform-
ances. Indeed, as the protestors march through the street, Hassan ‘imagined one moment that he
was taking part in a huge funeral procession, the funeral of authoritarianism and corruption’
(Belekziz 2012a, 16).
The notion of the people as united by common goals, shared values, communal sentiments, or
as victims of collective exploitation, and mass repression was thwarted in the aftermath of the the
euphoric period. The measures taken by the state to satisfy sections of society likely to amplify the
protests drove home the idea that the people, far from being a united whole whose ability to effect
change should be construed in terms of division, separation, and hierarchy. Thus was the con-
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clusion reached by Alhamzaoui following the electoral victory of the Islamists, who reaped the
fruits of the popular protests led by February 20th. Reflecting on the outcome of the promises
for change, Alhamzaoui mourns the move of the militants from altruistic enthusiasts united in
embracing revolutionary projects to individualistic opportunists competing for personal ambition
(Berrada, 132). The very idea of the people can be traced back to several sources. The first are the
activists who consider themselves the sole legitimate voice of an authentic people. The idea of an
authentic people acts as a fortifying myth that cements the unity of the activists and confirms the
belief that they constitute a homogeneous group. Other sources come variously from Enlighten-
ment thinking on man, nationalist formulas on the nation, the Marxist perspective on class unity,
and the Muslim concept of Umma. In these constructions ‘the people’ personify the cherished
human values of equality, freedom, justice, and piety; this utopian notion of the people is
based on the idea that it is always able to resist the constant threat of disunity and division con-
trived by the existing order. The authenticity and genuineness of the people is expected to become
concrete when change takes place. To the dismay of the disillusioned, however, the outcome is at
odds with initial hopes. Ihbat arises out ofthe clash between romantic idealism and the stubborn-
ness of realpolitik. The notion of the people – conceived and preserved as an abstraction – col-
lapses when it meets the concreteness of empirical politics and consequently proves to be
unfit, inadequate, or flawed.
Sharp ideological divisions prompted by the Islamists become an indicator for disunity in each
of the three texts considered here. Islamists are represented as a threat to the ideal of the people,
united under the banner of freedom. Reflecting on the rise of the Islamists, Hafid in Berrada’s
novel, regrets the inability of the left to create democratic rule, and laments the seductions of
the call for a return to a prelapsarian golden age ‘beautified by the illusions of those who are
obsessed with paradise’ (Berrada, 119). In each of the texts, religious fundamentalism is at
odds with the leftist aspirational definition of the people. For the works, fundamentalism is
nothing but the corruption of the genuine nature of what the people are, as it imposes fixed reac-
tionary formulas derived from skewed interpretations borrowed from the sacred texts aiming to
control society and set up a totalitarian state.
More than simply disillusionment with the people, ihbat is triggered by the realisation that a
political system is more resilient than revolutionary slogans – such as those that described the
monarchy as the ‘paper tiger’ – would have had them believe. In Berrada’s novel, disillusionment
with politics is expressed in the failure to change the old system, the everlasting Makhzen, in spite
of the history of half a century of militant initiatives starting with the coming of independence and
 10 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

continuing to February 20th. Here, ihbat is triggered by the realisation of the power of the political
machinery to reproduce itself and to withstand the people’s assault. This is best captured in
the image of the Makhzen as cat like, with seven lives, as Arraji’s mentor put it (Berrada,
217). Disillusionment comes with a lack of political experience (characters of Building 48 in
Ksikes’s play), dogmatism (in Belekziz’s al-Haraka), and political naiveté that operates as
action devoid of the calculations of rational politics, unable to force change on the enduring
state’s machine (initially all leading characters in Berrada’s novel).
A useful entry to the developing idea of ihbat is the analysis of politics related to imagination.
Here, change can be considered the work of the imagination, an imaginary situation that exists
in the minds and words of those expecting the transformation of society. These construct an alterna-
tive to the existing order. The idealist revolutionary alternative represents a thing yet to come, ‘à
venir’ as Derrida would put it, but before this happens and before it delivers the new order,
change remains in the realm of the imagination. The study of revolution and political change
must thus take into account this imaginary dimension in order to understand the mobilising
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emotions that trigger, sustain, and accompany it. This is also true for efforts to understand the demo-
bilising emotions that stem from disappointing results. This hints at the broader human dimension of
ihbat. According to Max Weber, ‘the final result of political action often, no, even regularly, stands
in completely inadequate and often even paradoxical relation to its original meaning. This is funda-
mental to all history’. To him, the only answer to this condition was that ‘some kind of faith must
always exist. Otherwise, it is absolutely true that the curse of the creature’s worthlessness oversha-
dows even the externally strongest political successes’ (Weber 2011/2012, 21).
For Nicholas Grimaldi, we only imagine what does not exist, but when we encounter what we
have imagined, we feel disappointed because our perception never matches our imagination. To
him, disillusion is neither the outcome of prior miscalculation nor of misjudgment. Rather, the
transition from imagination to concrete interaction with reality is bound to be disappointing. It
is a Proustian tragic human condition that reflects the impossible matching between reality as ima-
gined and as lived (Grimaldi 2008). Proust also brings up this paradox in the context of the
encounter between a man and his lover in an analogy can be extended to politics: the politics
we imagine as an alternative to the existing order is bound to be depressing in reality. Reading
February 20th through Grimaldi’s lens, what came out of the struggle manifested in the consti-
tution, the parliamentary elections, and the Party of Justice and Development Islamist government
was bound to be disappointing. This is not only because the realisations fell short of fulfilling the
street’s demands, but also because of the tragic impossibility of a perfect match between the great
expectations of the activists and whatever would have been realised. This reading suggests that
revolutions and political achievements are bound to be disappointing.
Although ihbat suggests a pessimistic closure to a political event, these texts can be interpreted
as an optimistic fictional framing gesturing towards alternative possibilities in dealing with Ihbat
and in overcoming resignation.
Although ihbat suggests a pessimistic closure to a political event, these texts can be interpreted
as an optimistic fictional framing gesturing towards alternative possibilities in dealing with ihbat
and in overcoming resignation. While in the literature ihbat has generally been either avoided or
downplayed, recognising the feeling of despair could mean taking part in a demobilising dis-
course. Addressing himself as a renown public intellectual, and former political prisoner
who took part in the radical left activism since the late1960s, the poet Abdellatif Laabi declared
as February 20th was losing momentum: ‘you know as much as I do that you can lay claim to all
rights except to the right of despair’. As a committed intellectual who embraces the cause of his
people, Laabi felt that he was not entitled to weaken their will by admitting failure. For him,
 The Journal of North African Studies 11

‘despair is sterile and useless’ (Laabi, 79); thus it can be said that despair is conceptually useless
and leads only to political dead ends. Reading ihbat in this way, it could become subject to
manipulation by the state or other political actors aiming to nourish resignation, capitulation,
or change in political beliefs and convictions. It becomes a weapon in ideological battles and
can furthermore be understood as a sign of demobilising group sentiment alongside collective
depression or national melancholia. As a ‘dispiriting’ rather than an ‘emboldening’ emotion, it
‘encourages individuals to prioritize security and resign to political circumstances, even when
they contradict values of dignity’ (Pearlman 2013). However, ihbat can also serve as a source
of inspiration for the emergence of new forms of contestation. Indeed, it could be understood
as a new form of resistance and of doing politics.
One attempt to confer a positive framing to ihbat is the idea that genuine change takes time
unaffected by setbacks. Karl Marx’s metaphor of the mole captures this position. The mole
does not have a fixed time table making tunnels underground, but it eventually breaks to the
surface (Prashad 2012). From this perspective, Marx’s positive image rules out despair and res-
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ignation as remedy to ihbat. The idea of dark matter offers a second positive frame. It looks at how
the invisible can transform apparently stagnant realities through processes undetected by transi-
tional approaches (Sholette 2011). This is echoed in the texts at hand.
Whether it is regarded as a human tragedy or confined to politics, ihbat in the works examined
does not constitute a static condition. Instead, it generates a situation that prepares for a post-ihbat
phase. This is consistent with Halberstam’s writing on failure. He notes that although ‘failure …
comes accompanied by a host of negative affects, such as disappointment, disillusionment, and
despair, it also provides the opportunity to use these negative affects to poke holes in the toxic
positivity of contemporary life’ (Quoted in Hale 2014, 57). In the case of al-Haraka, the
realism embraced by Amjad mobilises the possibility of the real. In his words, ‘realism is not
the recognition of the status quo, rather it is the endeavour to change the status quo through
the utilization of all realistic possibilities’ (Belekziz 2012a, 182). Ihbat also generates self-reflec-
tion and soul searching in the context of an alternative public sphere where it is not simply a
matter of realising an ideal speech situation among rational individuals in the Habermasian
sense, but where affect is celebrated. Samaan’s salon is depicted as a better alternative to deceiv-
ing politics and ephemeral love. It is also presented as an alternative to Habermas’ ideal speech
situation where rational free cognition prevails and desires are absent (Habermas 1993). The salon
offers its members, through open discussion and encounters, a means to deal with their bleak-
lived experiences and hope for better days to come (Berrada, 194). In the midst of his depression
and in search for a way out of his ihbat, Hamzaoui joins the salon and together with other disillu-
sioned characters, attempts to come to terms with their tragic predicament by giving vent to their
innermost thoughts and desires. He realises the disillusion that pervades his sentimental and
sexual life, in addition or parallel to his politics, resides in the fact that he is not true to
himself (Berrada, 132).
Ihbat also triggers an exploration of new methods of resistance. Remembering, for example,
becomes a good remedy for deception. Absaloum, in Ksikes’s play, wants Building 48 to
become a myth, but a myth of a new kind. What should be reconstructed is not the building,
not the event itself he suggests, but ‘a state of mind to be reinvented’ (Ksikes, 30), the state of
the continuous search for liberty. Rather than resuscitate a mythical past in the form of a
museum, Absaloum advocates a continued nourishment of conditions that make its realisation
possible in the future. Absaloum is aware of the difficulty of upholding hope in the midst of
tragedy, but is able to be ironic about this realisation. ‘Yes’, he confesses to Kaltoum with
regard to the gathering of the building’s former residents, ‘all this is lost forever, I know it
 12 T. Belghazi and A. Moudden

only too well. But to find ourselves here just like that, allowed us at least to turn it into a laughing
matter, to realize that hope is lost and to laugh about it’ (Ksikes, 77). Disillusionment enriches
political experience, acting as a form of socialisation and triggering a change from the politics
of illusions to the politics of disillusions, from the politics of the impossible to that of the possible.
The disillusion of Hassan in al-Haraka also reflects a coming of age in politics. He learns from
Amjad that politics is the art of the possible, and that in order for politics to be productive, it has to
move away from dogmatism and adopt realism. He is no longer the romantic he was during the
heyday of February 20th, but is now a newborn realist (Belekziz 2012a, 213). As such, he learned
the pitfalls of dogmatism, inherited from leftist radicalism.
Ihbat also produces political repositioning; by leaving the political centre stage and reoccupy-
ing the margin, it becomes a source of change over the long term. This was the objective of
Samaan’s salon, meant to constitute a refuge from the corrupt public sphere and a site for creating
a new body politic. This was also Araaji’s reason for writing fiction instead of conventional
history, and for leaving the noise of politics behind. This position is reflected in the novel’s
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title, where politics as experienced by the disillusioned characters is nothing but noise, and a
way out becomes the silence as self-reflection. Instead of politics, or old politics, Arraji embraces
fiction writing, which he feels ‘will free him from the agony of time and of waiting, and will give
readers freedom emanating from a reactive force, which should liberate us from alienation, objec-
tification and the stupidity of the soul and body’ (Berrada, 219). Hassan in al-Haraka makes a
similar decision: to reconnect with nature. His solution is to revel in the pleasures of silence
and to move away from the commotion of the capital’s useless politics.
Intimate and fluid as it may be – as evidenced in the diverse portrayals and explorations of ihbat
in the works examined here – the idea of defeat and its aftermath provides one entry to the invis-
ible energy in the wake of the Arab Spring. As such, it offers an alternative to the attention paid
only to the successes of social movements at the expense of their decline. This study of ihbat
suggests engaging with creative writings and with political emotions as one way to fill the
gap. It is, however, just the beginning of work in deploying other resources and research
methods to uncover other facets of the dynamics generated by political failures and their
impact on both demobilisation and re-mobilisation. These alternative strategies become necess-
ary, as a fuller picture of the post Arab spring yet to unravel, and an understanding of what hap-
pened and what is yet to come is essential. Indeed, the energies it has unleashed or repressed are
presently forming the ingredients for the political dark matter.

Acknowledgement
The authors thank Karima Laachir for her great editorial work and the anonymous reviewers for their insight-
ful comments.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes
1. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/disillusionment.
2. Interview with Ksikes, 20 February 2014.
3. Interview with Belekziz, 24 April 2015.
4. Interview with the author.
5. http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1381/al-shabbis-the-will-to-life.
 The Journal of North African Studies 13

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